Marco Rubio Went to Bat for Corinthian Colleges

The Florida senator sent a letter last summer to the Department of Education asking it to "demonstrate leniency" with the now-shuttered for-profit college network.

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, exits after speaking during the Leadership Forum at the 144th National Rifle Association Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 10, 2015.

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
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Last summer, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida asked the U.S. Department of Education to "demonstrate leniency" toward Corinthian Colleges by permitting the wealthy for-profit company to continue accessing millions of dollars in federal financial aid while it was cooperating with a federal investigation.

Ten months later, the company shuttered its remaining 28 campuses, instantly displacing some 16,000 students just days after it was fined $30 million by the Department of Education for a scheme involving "confirmed cases of misrepresentation of job placement rates" for as many as 947 students. The decision to close shop came after years of federal and state investigations into the company.